An asylum seeker who was granted the right to stay in the UK has been jailed after he was caught trying to meet a teenage boy for sex.
Omid Ebrahmi, 46, was living at Cedar Court Hotel in Wakefield before he was arrested after a group of vigilantes posed as the 14-year-old boy. The man, from the Middle East, has been living in the UK since 2021 and arranged to meet up with the teenager via the dating app Mingle2 in November last year.
But Ebrahmi was in for a shock when he found out the group had set up the decoy profile and that the boy did not exist. Prosecutor Carmel Pearson told Leeds Crown Court that Ebrahmi’s conversation, which was sent using a translation app from Kurdish Sorani to English, was initially “innocuous”.
Messages saw Ebrahmi tell the boy that he did not want to “get him in trouble” after finding out he was only 14-years-old. But the conversation took a turn when the 46-year-old asked for graphic images and sent several of his own penis.
He also sent a video of himself masturbating and said the pair would have the “best sex”.
Ebrahmi agreed to pay for the boy’s travel fare as they arranged to meet up in Leeds but backed out after suspecting it was a trap.
The group contacted police after finding out where he had been staying. Ebrahmi was arrested on December 12.
He initially denied any wrongdoing before admitting to several offences. They included attempted sexual communication with a child, attempting to cause a child to watch a sexual act, arranging the commission of a child-sex offence and attempting to cause or incite a child to engage in sexual activity.
Mitigating lawyer Timothy Jacobs confirmed Ebrahmi was granted a five-year pass to stay on December 8, just four days before his arrest. Jacobs added: “He is aware that the court will look at custody. It was unpleasant and wholly-wrong conduct, but there was no actual meeting and no actual child.”
Judge Simon Phillips KC sentenced Ebrahmi to 27 months, put the 46-year-old on the sex offender register for a 10-years and gave him a 10-year sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) to limit his internet use.
